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Customer Highlight: Philip Cook, Eagle Films
(Nov. 10, 2003)
Eagle Films,
owned and operated by Philip Cook, produces independent fantasy/sci-fi
features for home video. Their latest production "Despiser" hit Blockbuster
and Hollywood Video spring 2003.
We asked Philip, the director/producer of "Despiser", to tell us how he's been
using wondertouch's particleIllusion. Here is what he told us:
Q: Can you first tell us a little about your background and how you came to
creating visual effects for films?
I've been making films since high school and have continued to do so ever
since. "Despiser" was initially conceived as a traditional effects film. With
the coming of the CGI revolution, initiated with films like "Jurassic Park,"
my associates and I realized we would be going the way of the dinosaurs
unless we started to embrace CGI.
I started using Imagine 3D software that I found in a local bookshop.
Surely you couldn't produce 3D animation with two floppy disks and a home PC
as the book cover professed. To my amazement, you could! Within six months
I bought more powerful machines, more advanced software and bluffed my way
into my first professional animation gig for a paying client. With every
commercial job, I pushed the envelop further.
After years of being away from features, I took "Despiser" off the shelf and
looked at in a whole new way. After an arduous post-production, "Despiser" is
available on home video and is being marketed worldwide.
Q: How long has particleIllusion been in use at Eagle Films?
I've been working with particleIllusion (then Illusion) since its
development phase and was one of its early beta testers.
Q: What initially impacted the decision to purchase the particleIllusion?
Also, what particle effects features are important overall in a film like
"Despiser?"
Initially I used particleIllusion because of its ability to create
elaborate particle effects very quickly with a minimal learning curve.
In "Despiser" we used particleIllusion to enhance many shots with subtle things
like smoke or car exhaust. We used it little more flamboyantly for some
energy-like disintegrations, rocket exhausts and shockwaves towards the end
of the film. We also used it to create swirling hurricane-like cloud
formations that were composited above a nuclear fireball.
Q: How does particleIllusion fit into the Eagle Films production pipeline?
Can you comment on particleIllusion's performance in a production
environment?
Apart from a whole shot designed around particleIllusion's capabilities,
we found it particularly useful in the final editorial stages of "Despiser".
Someone would comment on how it would be nice if there was a little smoke
here or there. We would stop editing, load the shot in the background of particleIllusion,
and within a few minutes we would have an element that you could throw into a
sequence at the editorial stage of production.
Q: Please describe a few scenes from "Despiser" where particleIllusion was
used prominently.
In one scene a hand grenade explodes rupturing a hole in a missile's
fuselage. The main animation elements of the rocket were created in a 3D
program with interactive firelight. We used particleIllusion to generate
the flaming gases that spew from the hull propelling the rocket sideways.
It's a quick shot but it's very effective as this flaming rocket roars into
the foreground trailed by oily, fiery smoke.
In the climax of "Despiser" where a fortress is collapsing from a nuclear
shockwave, we used pI to create the windy rush of dust that roars into the
foreground before dissipating.
Q: What were some of the challenges you faced creating effects in "Despiser"
and how did particleIllusion benefit the project?
"Despiser" is a fairly stylized film and features over 700 effects shots to
depict its fantasy settings. It was a ridiculously ambitious film for its
budget and presented a huge work-load which was undertaken mainly by Cory
Collins, director of character animation, and myself. particleIllusion
allowed us to create some wonderful effects quickly and effectively. With so
much complex software available today, it's hard to stay proficient with it
all. You invest a lot of time learning a particular technique and then get
away from it for a couple of months and have to learn it all over again. One
of the benefits of pI is that you fire it up and you are up-to-speed almost
immediately. In addition, there's already a vast library of material
available for artists to start with--beautiful projects designed by Alan at
wondertouch and other users which offers a great starting point in which to
create your own animations.
Q: Care to share any other overall comments about particleIllusion?
particleIllusion is a wonderful, fast-rendering, cost effective software
tool. It offers a great way to achieve crowd-pleasing affects without
having to be a rocket scientist to program them!
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